As far as the main roster is concerned, this has been Samoa Joe's year. Dude has been fire on the mic, arguably or not arguably the best heel in the biz. Over with the crowd, believable character and has put on some great matches to boot. But we're now 3 PPV matches into the Styles/Joe feud, and Joe has not won any of them. Their match at Summerslam ended in a DQ fuck finish, their match at Hell in a Cell ended in a draw fuck finish, and their match at the Australia show ended with Joe tapping to the Calf Crusher. With the announcement that Styles will defend the title against Daniel Bryan in Saudi Arabia, there's a good possibility that the feud is now over. And if so... da fuck?

It wouldn't be so bad if not preceded by the Styles vs Nakamura feud, which I believe had 4 PPV matches, two of which ended in some sort of DQ fuck finish, and the other two ended with Styles beating Nak clean. Nakamura never won, which usually wouldn't be that bad, but the character could have really benefited from a big win in his disappointing main roster run. Styles dropping the title before winning it back would have worked - considering that Brock Lesnar was having a never-ending boring title run over on Raw. A little hot potato action on Smackdown wouldn't have hurt in that case, to keep things exciting and to contrast Raw.

And now it feels like we're in the exact same situation with Joe. Having him beat Styles once and then having Styles win the belt back would work, if they're that insistent on having AJ come out as the champion at the end of this feud. The storyline has consisted of Joe constantly trying to get inside AJ's head by threatening his family. The only thing Joe's plan has accomplished so far is get more opportunities to wrestle AJ. Which is fine, but if that's only only payoff and Joe never wins the belt, then the plan has ultimately failed. And Joe's plan failing undermines him as a heel. And I really don't want to see that, given how good of a heel Joe is.

It wouldn't be so bad if not preceded by the fact that Joe has not won any big match in ages. It seems like the biggest PPV win he had was way back when he won the multi-man #1 contender match at face Brock for the title, if anyone remembers that. If so, that was over a year ago.

AJ's title reign has now almost reached a full year. That along with him being on the cover of WWE's latest video game seem like great things on paper, considering that it's AJ Styles holding the WWE Championship after all. But if it hurts Nakamura and Joe in the long run, was it worth it? Is WWE still trying to erase CM Punk's legacy further by having another guy with a really long world title reign? Who should Styles drop the belt to if not Joe? Those are the questions for discussion.

This AJ/Joe feud is far from over -- possibly unfortunately -- it just will never end with Joe coming out as champion, but I do think he'll get a win or two and get the upper hand on AJ multiple times in the future. Joe is going to interfere and cost AJ the title at Crown Jewel so Bryan can win it - while protecting AJ.

That'll lead to Team AJ vs Team Joe at Survivor Series that Team Joe wins. AJ then gets his re-match at TLC and probably doesn't win it back. AJ and Joe will tangle in the Rumble match then and after that Joe gets a win at the minor PPV before Mania. AJ then gets the final win at Mania.

In the meantime I think they are building towards Daniel Bryan vs the Miz for the title at WrestleMania.

I'm not sure that the feud is over. But it doesn't matter. Failing to win the title over and over did nothing for Nakamura, and it's doing nothing for Samoa Joe. If he eventually wins the title after failing numerous times first, he'll be less over than he should have been as champion. If he fails to capture the title, he'll become damaged goods. They've already screwed this up for him and everyone else, now it's just a case of how badly.

I really hope that Miz vs Bryan for the title isn't the direction for Wrestlemania, because that sounds hideous. Not sure what the best option is for a Smackdown match at this stage. Maybe just go with Styles (c) vs Bryan and have them pull out all the stops. Bryan gets his first title win since his return at the biggest stage, after the best match that's probably available to him.

Hanley! wrote:I really hope that Miz vs Bryan for the title isn't the direction for Wrestlemania, because that sounds hideous. Not sure what the best option is for a Smackdown match at this stage. Maybe just go with Styles (c) vs Bryan and have them pull out all the stops. Bryan gets his first title win since his return at the biggest stage, after the best match that's probably available to him.

Why is it hideous? I mean, it's not the best choice, but it could work as the final blow off to a long-term story that's been building since before Summerslam. The Miz/Bryan feud has lost steam since then, but if they were to minimize the amount of interactions between the two of them for the next few months and then really heat things up for the final corridor before Wrestlemania, it could turn out to be a well booked and well received story. Feels like ages since we've had one of those on the main roster.

Like I said, it's not the best choice - mostly because I think Miz is better suited to being a midcard champion than a world champion, and Samoa Joe is just a much better choice for Smackdown's top heel right now. That being said, I have no problem with Miz being in a main event program again, and if they were to give him to the belt too, fine. He's been putting great work in the midcard for years. It should be a short reign though, because I don't want to see Miz working 20 minute main events on every PPV.

In any case, I think the obvious way to go is Bryan winning the title at Wrestlemania. And ideally he would be winning it off Samoa Joe. A Samoa Joe who had taken the belt from Styles by now and had run through all challengers for the next couple months. That's a perfect Wrestlemania match right there as far as I'm concerned. But it makes too much sense so of course they are not going to do it. I bet you they'll have Randy Orton involved instead.

Anyway, what I think will happen is Miz will cost Bryan the title at Crown Jewel and then win it off Styles some time after Styles reaches 365 days as champion, probably at the December PPV. At Survivor Series, Styles will likely be involved in a non-title Smackdown vs Raw thing, either against Roman Reigns or as the captain of team Smackdown. Then when Miz wins the belt they can build to Miz vs Bryan at Wrestlemania, have Bryan win the Rumble?

I wouldn't be opposed to Styles vs Bryan at Wrestlemania, but given how the Styles vs Nakamura "dream match" at Wrestlemania turned out, I feel like the match would never deliver at the level it could, and there are better story options to pursue. Not to mention Styles being champion that long would be boring.

I'm not saying that Styles holding the title to Wrestlemania is ideal, because if it was up to me I would have given the title to Nakamura or Samoa Joe by now. It just seems like the time has kinda passed to put it on them now, at least until next year.

Miz vs Bryan would suck as a championship match at Wrestlemania for several reasons. For starters, we've seen it a bunch of times already. Second of all, Miz isn't very good in the ring and would have a hard time delivering a quality championship match on that kind of stage. And while I like Miz as an act, he's not a main event act. People don't buy him in that position, and I definitely don't. Then there's just the large number of superior options that you'd be leaving on the table.

Plus, the Bryan and Miz feud just doesn't seem very compelling. They had a great segment on Talking Smack and Miz got loads of heat from it because Bryan couldn't get his hands on Miz to get payback. The pay off to that story was just to let Bryan get his hands on Miz and kick his ass. The longer they drag the story out with meaningless matches, the less interested people are going to be in it. There's not enough heat or interest there for it to be worthy of a Wrestlemania main event or title match, by any stretch of the imagination.